Random blog posts since 2001. Other randomness since 1984.

Random blog posts since 2001. Other randomness since 1984.

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My name is Janet. I was born in 1984 on the cusp of Aquarius and Pisces. I've had this site since 2001. I love to watch/read anything to do with vampires. I'm interested in learning about mythology, serial killers, and various other things that don't generally interest people my age. I tend to discuss my problems in this blog, so if you don't want to read my whining about my health, then you might want to go now. There's a fanlisting for me that you could join, if you want. (No pressure.)

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In a little less than half an hour, it will be thirty-six hours before I have to be at the hospital for my hip injection. While I’m still worried about going through a general anesthetic, I’m more worried right now about who will be performing the procedure. Well, not exactly. To be more precise, I’m worried about who will be assisting. The nurse practitioner of the orthopedist I’m seeing for my hip is a guy I’ve known since I was 8 years old. We were in the same third grade class, sat at the same lunch table, and went to the same church. He was my third grade boyfriend’s best friend and my third grade best friend’s boyfriend. We used to joke, at our lunch table, about a lot of things we were too young to really understand. One of his and his best friend’s favorite jokes was that they wanted to put their “limousines” in the “garages” of my friend and me.1 Even though I know that he is a professional and is married, it’s very weird to think that he’ll be in the general vicinity of my “garage” on Monday morning. We’ve known one another for twenty-five years. I know his mother. He knows my mother. This whole thing is just very awkward for me, which is a little weird because if he was a total stranger, I would totally be okay with being naked in this scenario.23 But because I know him I feel all weird about all of this. It’s just weird. I’m not usually this freaked out about the nakedness part of procedures. If you don’t get it, think about it. I’ll give you a moment. ↩This isn’t about him being a guy. I was nervous when a high school friend had to put a catheter in me in the ER once. ↩Oddly, there are quite a few people I’m still acquainted with who have seen me naked at some point. Most were in dance with me. ↩

Another day, another detailed list of why Trump should not be President. And guess what else happens today? The Democratic National Convention starts. Yay! If you’re surprised that I’m a Democrat, you’re obviously new here. And if you’re new here, then you don’t realize that I’m posting 21 reasons every day for 99 days to show why Donald Trump should never be the President of the United States. I’m not trying to push any of the other candidates in these posts, even if I do prefer one party to all the others. Now that I’ve gotten through with the disclaimer-esque statement, let’s get on to the discussion of Trump’s failings. Let’s see, we left off with Donald Trump allowing a racist gambler to dictate how he ran his casino, so let’s go to a similar claim about Mr. Trump and his casinos for number 43. 43. When Donald and Ivana would go to the casino, the bosses would order all black employees off the floor. For a man who vehemently denies racism, he’s done a lot of racist stuff. No one knows if it was just the bosses at his Atlantic City properties who made the order or if it was an order from the boss-man himself, but Kip Brown, a former employee, told The New Yorker about the “policy” last summer. 44. Donald Trump called black people lazy and said he only wants Jewish people counting his money. In Trumped!: The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump — His Cunning Rise and Spectacular Fall by John O’Donnell, one-time president of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, says that Trump once told him: “Yeah, I never liked the guy. I don’t think he knows what the fuck he’s doing. My accountants up in New York are always complaining about him. He’s not responsive. And isn’t it funny, I’ve got black accountants at Trump Castle and at Trump Plaza. Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day. Those are the kind of people I want counting my money. Nobody else.” Trump continued with, “Besides that, I’ve got to tell you something else. I think that the guy is lazy. And it’s probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It’s not anything they can control…Don’t you agree?” When interviewed by Mark Bowden for Playboy magazine in 1997, Trump responded that the account was probably true; but in 2016, he said that it was fiction. Are you starting to get the feeling that his claims of not being racist are a little disingenuous? 45. Trump was sued for lack of diverse employees in 1996 at a riverboat casino. Trump was sued by 20 African Americans in Indiana for failing to hire mostly minority workers for a Lake Michigan riverboat casino. Trump had promised that 70% of his workforce at the floating casino would be made of members of the minority community and 52% would be women. The lawsuit also alleged that he hasn’t honored commitments to steer contracts to minority-owned businesses in Gary. 46. Donald Trump is supported by Vojislav Šešelj. Admittedly, in late May 2016, Šešelj was acquitted by the Hague of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Croatia and Bosnia in the 1990s, but that doesn’t make his January endorsement of Trump any more acceptable. His acquittal was blamed by the ICTY’s judges on the prosecution causing confusion over his role in the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia. If Trump is being openly supported by people who are linked to ethnic cleansing and is refusing to disavow their support, then what does that say about Mr. Trump? 47. Trump is also supported by the Daily Stormer, Richard Spencer, Jared Taylor, Michael Hill, and Brad Griffin. If Donald Trump was a shepherd, white supremacists would be his flock. It’s not a coincidence that white supremacists want Trump elected. He “speaks to” them, their hatred, their ignorance. The Daily Stormer’s publisher, Andrew Anglin, announced the support of Trump for his anti-Muslim plan with statements like “Heil Donald Trump — THE ULTIMATE SAVIOR” and “Make America White Again!” Anglin also appreciates that Trump has spoken negatively about Mexicans. Richard Spencer, who is “dedidcated to the heritage, identity and future of people of European descent” sees Trump as the candidate “bringing identity politics for white people into the public sphere in a way no one has.” Spencer said, “Identity is the most important question to answer. Who are we racially? Who are we historically? Who are we in terms of our experience? Who are we in terms of our community?” He appreciated that Trump “seemed to understand and echo many of his group’s ideas intuitively, and take them to a broader audience.” He also pointed out that “there’s no direct object” in Trumps’ statement relased disavowing David Duke’s endorsement. Spencer also believes that Trump will encourage more people to turn toward his beliefs. And while he used to believe that Trump might not share the beliefs himself, he now believes that “Trump thinks like” him and that that’s why people like him love and support Trump. Donald #Trump makes us feel alive. pic.twitter.com/KkGoimK52T — Richard B. Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) July 22, 2016 We The Right-Wing Now. #GOPinCLE #Trump #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/hN9wX5JE7q — Richard B. Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) July 22, 2016 Jared Taylor was featured in pro-Trump, pro-white, anti-Muslim robocalls in Iowa by a super PAC. Taylor also appreciates Trump’s anti-Mexican rhetoric and said, “Ordinary white people don’t want the neighborhood to turn Mexican.” Trump failed to distance himself from the calls made on his behalf and even suggested that his supporters had “legitimate anger” behind their actions. Taylor has never supported a presidential candidate before, but he believes in Trump and thinks “someone who wants to send home all illegal immigrants and at least temporarily ban Muslim immigration is acting in the interest of whites, whether consciously or not.” Founder of the hate group League of the […]

I opened a FetLife account one night almost two years ago. I won’t link to it here or explain why I joined. I will say I quit using it not long after because of behavior, unrelated to kinks, by some users that I found alarming. Before tonight, I had only signed in to stop receiving regular emails from groups I had at one time thought might interest me. Since that time, I had not signed in, nor had I thought about signing in.1 Tonight, though, tonight I signed in and deactivated my account there.2 On my FetLife account, I do not recall ever linking to this or any other blog I have ever used. I was warned about maintaining anonymity by a user that I once knew from church. 34 I didn’t use images where I could be easily identified. I didn’t use any identifying nicknames. I used my first name once, but no more than that. I’ve also never linked to my FetLife account on any social media or on here. I’m stating this because I felt, I don’t even know how to describe it, when I got a notification of a private message. The subject line was “Hello Janet” and the body of the message was: Hi. You have a very interesting net presence. Your blog shows that you think deeply about a lot of things. Let me know if you’d like to chat some time and see if we can have a conversation that interests you. I’m guessing that whoever wrote this is probably reading this right now. That creeps me out. It has taken me a long time to feel truly comfortable talking about my life here or anywhere. And now it feels like that comfort, that ability to express myself freely has been taken from me. I don’t appreciate that. I shouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable talking about myself on here. I shouldn’t have to worry about how a total stranger managed to track my blog down from the one time I slipped up and used my first name. I shouldn’t have to worry about what all that stranger might have been trying to find out about me. I guess I do have way to describe how I feel. I’m scared. I’m disgusted. I’m absolutely fucking pissed off. I understand that we as a society Google everyone and everything. I understand that privacy is something that barely exists in today’s world. But I also understand that this was something that should not have happened. This was too much for me. I tried so hard to maintain anonymity because I felt that would keep me safe. This ripped away any safety I might have felt on there, on here. I’m out of FetLife. For now. Possibly for good. Photo credit: breathtakingly via VisualHunt / CC BY-NC-ND I hadn’t wanted to sign in. I like who I’m currently involved with and feel happier with them than I ever thought possible. I don’t talk about this person or what we do on here because I want to maintain his privacy. ↩I had to reset the password to do so. ↩Who knew Mormons could be kinky? ↩He is part of why I quit the site. I found him on a dating app, but didn’t know who he was—he didn’t include a picture—but I thought his profile sounded interesting. He knew the whole time who I was. When he finally told me, I pulled away. I didn’t particularly like him before the encounter. I liked him less after, especially considering I met him while I was doing my prospective member lessons before I was baptized. That lesson was done at the apartment he shared with his then-wife and his son. We had a history that I didn’t want to relive. After I made it clear that I didn’t have an interest in engaging in anything with him, he started popping up on other websites I used saying how surprised he was to run into me on them. He accused me, in jest, of stalking him. ↩

As children, most of us learn that winning isn’t everything and that we need to be gracious regardless. It can be hard to understand how to express oneself in a gracious way after any competition. It can be especially hard if someone who is held with high regard or is seen as an authority figure encourages bad behavior. When that person throws insults at people who he dislikes or who challenge him, you insult them to appease him. When he says he wants someone punched in the face, you might actually punch them in the face. When that person tells a group that he will pay their legal fees if they hurt someone for him, you might think he will have your back if you do something illegal. People don’t always behave rationally when egged on by their idol. After Donald Trump lost in Utah, his fanbase immediately started talking about how Mormons conspired to make him lose the state. Tonight, a more prominent Trump fan started stirring that pot by pontificating about why a Mormon state like Utah would turn its back on Trump & vote for Ted Cruz. This was all other fans needed to see to begin their anti-Mormon tweets. I saw one in particular who felt the need to suggest Mormons are child molesters. He was talking about the FLDS1 cult and I pointed this out. At first, he seemed to be interested in learning the differences. I thought that maybe he was a confused, but decent person. I. Was. Wrong. I was so very wrong. I understand politics can bring out passionate reactions in some, but that doesn’t excuse this. Nothing can. Being me, of course I blamed myself at first. You see, I was on a Twitter account I had created to show that Trump is not really distinguishable from certain public figures and fictional characters. It was a bit of entertainment for me. So my thought as I read that I deserved “to be raped by several men for God” was that I had brought this on myself. Luckily, that thought was quickly discarded as I remembered that I was not the one making a threat or encouraging the threats. I mainly blame this user. I also blame Donald Trump. I blame every person who has amplified Trump’s hateful rhetoric. I blame people who don’t challenge Trump. I blame the people who look the other way on the threats and violence by Trump supporters. We haven’t randomly gotten to a point where these threats are made. This has been building since Trump announced his candidacy. Maybe even before that. But it has to stop. Trump’s threat of riots if he isn’t nominated will likely come true. If people like this guy are inspired by Trump, we are in a world of hurt. No matter whether he gets the nomination or wins in November, the hate in the hearts of people like this user has been awakened. And it won’t just go away. It doesn’t help that many turn a blind eye to these threats of retribution. I asked in an LDS group on Facebook for people with Twitter accounts to report this user.2 Well, a user seemed to think this was an odd request.3 I explained my reasoning & pointed out that this isn’t just some random rude comment about or to a single person. This person is threatening millions of people. That’s a big deal. Donald Trump needs to get it across to his followers that they should behave like adults. I guess he will have to learn how to act like one first, though. He needs to say the threats and violence should stop, but then he’d have to stop inciting both. Americans need to work together to stop this hateboner crowd from completely demolishing this country, its laws, and its freedoms. There is no excuse for allowing Trump or his followers to continue to encourage hatred & violence. There is no excuse for a candidate who inspires his followers to threaten rape or murder. Speak up and speak out to end this retribution game. Photo credit: ♥ ella minnow peas ♥ via Visual Hunt / CC BY-SA The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ↩I know that Twitter sometimes acts more quickly on threats and abuse if multiple people report the behavior. ↩Even if the threats are just some random asshole being an asshole, the first response to these threats should not be, “Well, what do you expect me to do about this?” It should be obvious what you should do. ↩

I spent more time defending the church before I joined (fourteen years from my first set of lessons until I was baptized) than I spent being an active member (seven months). And I still defend it sometimes. Even six years after I was last active. via Tumblr

A Latter-Day Tragedy – Suicide Over Masturbation frontier-heart: HOLY SHIT there was a kid who committed suicide because of the exact same thing that the Mormon church did to me, and the child’s parent’s filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the church.

It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. The easiest thing to do when you disagree with ideas promoted by LDS Church members and by the church itself is to leave. It’s what I did. There were a lot of reasons that I went inactive within the church, but one was that I found myself feeling more and more uncomfortable with what was being promoted. I admire Kate Kelly and John Dehlin for feeling able to stand up to the church and continue to go there while being threatened with disciplinary actions, including excommunication. I don’t think I will be going back any time soon. There are certain things that happened while I was active that I never felt comfortable with, as well as things that happened before I was a member that made me feel funny. Right after my mom joined, some members tried to pressure her into getting me to join. Because she didn’t, she faced some ostracism. When Stephanie was baptized, I wore a dress that may have been a little low-cut. I was 16 and a non-member. It didn’t show anything off, but there were comments about it. When I was doing my interview with a missionary and had to answer questions to determine my readiness, some of the questions included my chastity and if I’d had an abortion or helped someone else to get one. I hadn’t had sex and I decided that being adamantly pro-choice didn’t count toward helping someone get an abortion, but the questions made me feel funny. I was told within weeks of joining that I was basically bastard-born because my parents weren’t sealed in the temple. They were married. My mom converted to the church when I was about 10. My dad never did. According to the church, my birth is illegitimate. At an Institute lesson, within weeks of my joining, we were taught that any person who questions the church’s teachings in any way is like gangrene. They’re a gangrenous limb that can be cut off. It made me feel like I had no way of learning about the church. This man also said people who watch horror films are more touched by “the Adversary”, aka Satan; he also said that women’s positions as mothers made them equal to men in their roles as Priesthood holders. Another of his fun teachings, that is actually church doctrine, is that if you have to choose between paying for your medicine or groceries and paying your monthly tithing, you should always pick tithing because Heavenly Father will always provide for you if you do this. Technically, if you pay the tithing, the Church is supposed to help you get by with aid programs. They don’t always do that. And if they do help, it isn’t without even more strings. On the way to a regional (though not our region) YSA conference, shortly after crossing into Tennessee, the co-rep for the Stake’s YSA started calling Barack Obama “Korihor”–aka a Mormon anti-christ.1 The other people in the car agreed with her. Because of her position of power and my tendency in non-internet social situations to be extremely quiet, I just sat and listened to them. I was told that if I really believed in God and in the Church that my mental and physical health problems would be miraculously cured. When friends were talking about homosexuality being unnatural, I said that they were wrong. I brought up that I had 1 guinea pig that had been gay and 1 that had been bisexual, so I knew that homosexual behavior was a natural thing. I was told that was inappropriate to talk about. It seemed odd that it was okay to talk about it being unnatural, but it was horrifying for me to say it was normal. At that same conversation, these two friends were talking about the upcoming election. This was at Halloween 2008. They were talking about how one’s sister had told her class that she supported McCain and had heard little support for Obama. They were talking about how it was nice that so many people in the area were Republicans. They didn’t even know any Democrats. This was when I told them that I was actually a Democrat. They said that wasn’t popular in the church and I should consider changing parties. At the dance, the same member2 who had called Obama “Korihor” was in a costume that seemed to include blackface. She said it wasn’t, but it was pretty clear that she had blackened her face and taken on a costume of an underprivileged person so she could promote some pretty anti-black feelings. I contemplated talking to someone about her doing this at a church dance, but I knew that with the conservative leanings of local Mormons that I might be the one who would be disciplined for not respecting the leader of the group I was under.3 At 2 Break the Fast meals for the Ward’s YSA, there was some political discussion going on. Yet again when I just mentioned supporting another party, the discussion was shifted without any acknowledgement that I said anything. At a combined session of Relief Society and Priesthood, which rarely happens, the wife of the then First Counselor of the Church went on a little rant about how we needed to be especially good about building up our Food Storage because Obama had been elected. After giving a lesson on tolerance during FHE for the group’s YSA, I was unfriended by blackface girl. I also saw that she (and other YSA people) had “Facebook flair” that said gingers had no souls. Though I knew the reference was a South Park one, it felt a little personal. On Internet postings by Ward and Stake members in 2008 and 2012, people threatened to leave the country or suggested that the world was going to end because Obama was elected. Anytime he’s […]

“one of my friends who’s been involved in OW as a BYU student was just threatened with the “resign or else” ultimatum by her old stake president (who will personally reside over the process in a far away city). Her, and others like her, will likely face excommunication quietly in the eclipse of more notorious individuals like JD and KK. Normally I’d include some sort of quip here, but this speaks volumes by itself.” – June purge extending to byu students : exmormon via Tumblr

mmmqimmedat: liberallogic101: mmmqimmedat: janersm: mmmqimmedat: Update for this post: It took a while for him to respond, but he eventually did. When are people going to realize that past revelations within the church seem to happen at pretty coincidental times? Once again feminists using third world incidents for their first world bullshit. Take your asses over to India, Iraq, Kuwait, and more. Go fight over there; that’s where your silly ass movement is actually needed. What the fuck are you even talking about? This had no mention of third world events. It’s discussing the rights to access the priesthood within the context of a particular religion. Please No rebuttal? Please. My rebuttal as usual is “dyke” Ah. Yes. I support women having access to priesthood in a religion I grew up around and eventually joined, so this makes me a dyke. Way to combine a lack of information about the topic at hand with some sexism and homophobia. Thumbs up. Stellar job. Maybe next time you could call me a baby killer or some other stereotype you have about women who don’t believe that they should be subjugated because of their sex/gender. via Tumblr

Update for this post: It took a while for him to respond, but he eventually did. When are people going to realize that past revelations within the church seem to happen at pretty coincidental times? via Tumblr